


Glow In The Dark Poetry

by Ididntsignupforthisshit (myhamartia)



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: F/M, Female Pronouns for Pidge | Katie Holt, Fluff, In which Lance learns Altean faster than the other paladins and if a little shit about it, Pidge being 19 and Lance 22, Pidge is done with Lance but Lance is just getting started, Set 5 years after cannon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-11
Updated: 2016-09-11
Packaged: 2018-08-14 08:52:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,328
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8006470
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/myhamartia/pseuds/Ididntsignupforthisshit
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Pidge had thought that it was an excellent idea to create the English to Altean language program. It would be hugely beneficial for the team to know the language.</p><p>She just... didn't account for Lance to pick up on it faster than the rest of them... or for him to begin sending her stupidly complex messages that take so long to translate. He sends her that stupid smile every time he sees her working on it. Allura blushes when Pidge asks her to do a quick translation and the Princess simply tells her that maybe it would be better if Pidge would ask Lance instead.</p><p>It's infuriating, but she's not giving up so easily.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Glow In The Dark Poetry

“Lance!”

    The shout carried over the hallways into said man’s opened doorway.

    Lance hummed simply, not looking up from the book laid out in front of him. Ever since Pidge had input the concept of English into the castle, she had developed an Altean language course that the paladins had been taking. Surprisingly, Shiro was the only one who was having too much trouble with his lessons.

    And Lance, to everyone’s further surprise, got it quicker than anyone. Whether or not he was translating Altean electrical panels for Pidge and reading ingredient lists for Hunk, he was getting good.

    He had moved along to Altean novels, soon enough - which was what he currently had in front of him. From what he could tell, Altean fiction was just as bad as earth’s. Finding good fiction was plain exhausting.

    Pidge came stomping in the door a moment later. Her hair was messy with tufts sticking up all over and dropping into her eyes. Her eyes - the one that glowed with rage and intent to kill.

    “Hello, Katelyn,” he said, throwing a crooked smile up at her. “What would you be doing this fine space-time?” He didn’t get up from his place on the floor, lying on his stomach with the novel in front of his folded arms.

    “Don’t get flirty with me, Lance,” she hissed. “How many times do I have to tell you not to touch my stuff?”

    “What are you talking about?” he asked, blinking innocently. He looked at the panel she had in her hands and let a flirtatious smirk come onto his mouth as he propped his chin up on the back of his hand. “Ooohhh, so you’ve got my message, huh?”

    She scowled down at him, no doubt resisting the urge to plant the toe of her boot right into the center of his forehead. “What does it say?” she demanded, showing him the graffitied panel. It was done with a cyan ink that glowed in the lighting. Allura had told him that the markers were used by service men in the early days of the castle when they were required to go up into pipings and the inner walls. They were to mark coordinates, give details about how to service the castle. The markers  _ certainly _ were not for  _ vandalizing _ the wall panel that stood next to her bathroom mirror!

    Sure, Altean wall panels were built to be easily replaceable, but Pidge wasn’t just about to throw it away and find a replacement without finding out why this stupid Blue Paladin broke into her room to pull this prank!

    Lance shifted, pulling his feet under him so he could sit cross-legged in front of her. The pages of his book fluttered, effectively losing his place for him. He frowned at that, but put it aside so he could look up at the young woman. “You mean you don’t know?” he asked, faux-incredulously. “The great, master translator Katie ‘Pidge’ Holt doesn’t understand it?” His eyes were wide and his hand splayed out on his chest as his head tilted back a little. “It’s unheard of!” he gasped.

    Pidge gave him a little growl. “Just tell me now so I don’t have to waste my precious time translating garbage!”

    He looked at her a little more seriously, the smile still annoyingly in place as if it never slipped. “Why Pidge, if you can’t read it. couldn’t you just put it through your translation program?” His eyebrow lifted in a challenge that had the hair on the back of her neck rising and her teeth grinding.

    “Lance-,” she growled. “Tell me now and I may leave your fingernails in your stupid hands.”

    He snorted, flexing his fingers. He went back to his book, leaning over to pick it up. He sent her one last look. “Can’t read it, run it through your translator.”

    She could feel her eye twitch as she stared at him. Her cheeks puffed out in anger before she turned around with a flourish, stomping out of the room. Lance watched her go with a satisfied smile on his face, anticipation bubbling up in his chest, along with a small bit of anxiety pertaining to what exactly was written on the panel.  _ Oh well, _ he supposed,  _ no going back, now. _

Pidge carted the wall panel under her arm down the hallways. She wasn’t going to use the translator - not the one Lance had referred to, anyway. She didn’t want to admit defeat by using the computer program but she  _ really _ needed to get back to work. She had a full day planned that had her patching up and washing Green after their latest battle. She was in pretty bad shape and Pidge was determined to soothe it over with soft words and a warm washcloth. Of course, Lance would choose  _ today _ to play a stupid prank on her. She had gotten up, intent on showering when she saw the soft glow of the ink from the doorway. The neat Altean writing was pulsing pleasantly at her from the door panel, signed at the bottom in a pretty English scrawl  _ Lance _ .

    She made quick work of brushing her teeth before she was tapping at the panel and removing it from the wall so she could cart it across the hall to Lance’s room.

    The stupid paladin only set her on the track to an unproductive day topped with a headache. She huffed a breath of air into the empty hall, willing the tension in her forehead to ease, hoping to divert the pain that was threatening to spread throughout her skull.

    Okay, the plan was to go to Allura, there was no doubt that she was up already - Alteans ran on a three hours rest cycle. She and Coran were up much earlier than everyone else everyday. They usually took the time to lounge around in the quiet of the morning or go over the castle’s systems. Allura hit the training deck more often than not. She worked until Shiro rose (still much earlier than everyone else) and then she sparred with him for a few hours.

    “Time?” she wondered aloud, addressing the castle. A little analog display popped up, moving with her as she walked. It was around a quarter after seven earth time. Good, she smiled, it was about time for Allura and Shiro to finish in the training deck. She picked up her pace a bit, roaming along the corridors until she found the training deck’s doorway. It slid open as soon as she approached it, Shiro trailing out. His hair was dripping with sweat and he was shirtless, letting his skin shine in the bright light.

    He smiled brightly, if not a little tiredly when he caught sight of her. “Good morning,” he greeted cheerily. “Are you heading in to train? Allura’s still at it.”

    Pidge rolled her eyes fondly. “Of course she is. I swear, she could break my leg with a tap.” Shiro laughed along with her before passing, telling her that he was off to find something for breakfast. Pidge glanced over her shoulder, watching him turn the corner before ducking into the room.

    Sure enough, there Allura was, taking on what was probably a level 3,000 training bot with ease. She was using a staff taken from the bot and was currently kicking it’s robot hide straight into next Tuesday or whatever the Altean equivalent.

    As soon as Pidge was spotted in the princess’ peripherals, the simulation was stopped and the bot, along with the staff in her hand disappeared.

    “Pidge!” she called bright. “Come to spar?”

    Pidge shook her head and shrugged her shoulder, displaying the panel under it. “No, I needed to ask you something.”

    “Oh?” Pidge moved forward over the training mats as Allura met a hovering table that carried a few water pouches. She poked holes in two of them and proceeded to drink both at the same time. Pidge wasn’t sure how she kept the suction in both straws, but quickly put it out of her mind, as she was here for a reason.

    “Yeah. Lance vandalized my bathroom.” She showed Allura the panel, an exasperated look on her face. “Do you know what this says? The idiot won’t tell me.”

    Allura frowned. “One shouldn’t vandalize the castle, no matter the reason,” she said gravely as she looked at the writing. Her expression went from stony to flustered as she began to read the message. “I-! This is Lance’s work?” she asked, looking Pidge in the eyes. A flush covered the princess’ dark cheeks and it had Pidge cocking her head curiously.

    “Yes,” she answered, “can you tell me what it says?”

    Allura glanced back down at the panel, blinked thrice before looking back up to Pidge. She flushed deeper. “Perhaps it would be better to ask him again. It’s a…  _ private _ sort of thing,” she confided.

All week long, Pidge poured over Allura’s reaction to the stupid panel.

    The panel that was stupid hard to translate. She didn’t want to run it through the translator, because if it was like Allura said… if it was private, then it would pop up on the translator’s history. A history accessible to literally everyone on the team. Anyone to see this “private” thing that Lance had put on her stupid bathroom wall. Her mind went suspicious instantly, she hunted Lance down and yelled at him to tell her what it was. He refused, but assured her that it wasn’t anything inappropriate.

    She set to translating it by hand. It was painstakingly slow. She stayed up late, thinking over the symbols etched into the panel, the stupidly neat  _ Lance _ written at the bottom. She worked on it whenever she could, aggressively cracking the stupid puzzle that Lance had put in front of her. Any time that he found her working on it, he would smile to himself and look at her for a minute before moving on like nothing had ever happened.

It was infuriating.

    He offered no clues, gave no hints. The one time Lance becomes a steel trap is the one where Pidge wants all the info he knows wide open, spread out on the table.

    By the end of the second week, she had it translated. Translated into English was one thing, translating it to where she could actually read it was something completely different. It was in some kind of Alten poetry, styled beautifully, but it may as well have been in Altean, as the message behind it was still as fuzzy as it came.

    There was talks of water droplets, bursts of air… Stars and light… It made no sense. Pidge was never one for poetry. She remembered that Matthew was, as was their mother. She briefly wondered if Shiro would help her decode this madness. She pushed the idea aside almost instantly, not wanting to let the man in on whatever…  _ this _ was.

    She breathed out a puff of air and collapsed onto her bed, her head swimming. Maybe if she began to look at it a bit differently… in a more abstract sense.

    She read it over and over until the words were ingrained into her brain and she could recite them on command. The words were beautiful, she could admit. Lance knew how to write in a way that would have made any girl’s heart thump if he were to write them a love letter.

    Pidge froze, spine going rigid.

Love letter.

_ A love letter _ .

    For the love of God, it was a love letter! She launched up from where she lied on her bed. The thin blanket pooled around her lap as she twisted to look at the softly glowing letters on the panel that sat on her desk. The letters pulsed softly in the dark, taunting her. She read them from across the room, her chest tightening and fluttering all at once.

    There was no denying it once she looked it over again. The water droplets and puffs of air, the symbolic phrases repeated over and over in the tile until the end. She cheeks warmed and butterflies were let loose in her stomach. She flung the blanket off of her and stood up.

    “Time?” she asked the air. A little blue display told her that it was just after two in the morning. There was no doubt that everyone else was still asleep. She didn’t seem to care as she slipped on her pair of Green slippers and went towards her door, gathering up the panel as she did. She travelled the little bit of distance that stood in between their rooms. Her fingertip pressed into the little doorbell she and Hunk had installed into everyone’s rooms. They had figured out very early on that knocking was useless against the thick metal doors and she and the older paladin had resolved to fix their problem.

    She pressed it insistently until the door slid open and Lance stood there, hair a mess and blue robe hastily pulled on.

    “Katie?” he murmured, squinting his eyes open. He rubbed the knuckles of his left hand into his eyes and breathed out a few words in a different language that Pidge didn’t understand. “‘S early.”

    “This,” was all she said as she shoved the panel into his hands. He looked at it lazily, still undoubtedly half-asleep. “It’s a love-y poetry piece.”

    Lance squinted his eyes, but straightened up a little bit. “You figured it out?”

    Pidge rolled her eyes and crooked her finger for him to bend down a little bit. He did, still blinking sleep out of his eyes. His eyes, hard to see in the darkened hallway, shot right open as Katie leaned up and brushed her lips against his cheek with a breathed “yes”. In shock, Lance let the panel drop from his arms… right onto the top of his slipper-clad foot.

    He yelled a curse and Pidge became immensely glad for the sound-proof rooms.

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this in 2 1/2 hours and I have not looked it over aahhHHHHHHHH.  
> But seriously, I hope you liked it!!! I love this idea, personally.  
> And this is so pure, omg. When have I ever written something so pure??
> 
> Please drop me a comment telling me your thoughts! I'm also on tumblr @youngtiredandhungry ! I love talking to people, so come say hello and chat with me about how this ship is just so *clenches fist* underappreciated.


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